


Ysbrydnos

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Closure, Family Feels, Gen, Ghosts, Post-Movie(s), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 03:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12572640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: This was the one time of the year when spirits were rumoured to walk abroad ... but Arthur had a feeling the Mage had opened the way for these in particular, this night.





	Ysbrydnos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> Title is Welsh for "Spirit Night." Similarly, the phrase "Calends of Winter" is the Brythonic equivalent of "Samhain".

Arthur had never been much for the spiritual side of the annual festivals. In Londinium, they'd mostly been excuses to fleece the rich for more coin than they usually carried — both in the streets, and in the usual run of things at the brothel. Folk who held to the old religion with obvious devotion became few and far between as the public feast days were gradually appropriated by adulation of all things Vortigern, and praying too loudly, whether to the old religion or the new, had a tendency to draw the Blacklegs.

It had taken him years to realise why; that it was part and parcel of Vortigern's persecution of the mages, stamping out every obeisance toward a greater power that did not in some way increase the reverence of his _own_ name. It was fitting, then, that the return of the mages should bring the old religion back with them, and that the first Calends of Winter after Arthur took up the Sword should be celebrated more fervently than any he could previously remember.

The bonfires were lit, noble and townsman alike feasted on the fruits of the harvest — and that night in Camelot, Arthur slipped, all unwitting, from the threshold of sleep into a vision.

His dreams of the death of his parents had eased greatly since he'd finally confronted Vortigern and made sense of the devil that had haunted him all his life. But he still saw them in his sleep, now and again; tiny pieces of his childhood beginning to surface now that the blockage that had concealed his true identity even from him had shattered. Views of the halls of Camelot from the perch of a strong shoulder; the sweet scent of his mother's hair as she sang him to sleep; a smiling man in a beard and a lovely lady with long blonde hair beaming in regal velvets and brocades instead of leather armour over mail or a blue cloak, rippling as it fell toward the water. They were a comfort to him in a place and a role that still chafed badly, most days.

The sight of the Mage smiling enigmatically at him, rather less so. She'd been frustratingly elusive since she'd helped Arthur take the castle, choosing to serve her people directly rather than return to take up the seat he'd offered her at the Table. He had no doubt she would, eventually ... when it suited her. But in the meantime, she had a tendency to interrupt his sleep with her messages.

She appeared standing on the old dock where his original visions had all started, dressed much as she had on that original journey, a practically-cut dress in shades of brown and green over an undyed linen shift. He glanced down at himself by reflex, surprised to find himself dressed in one of the expensively coloured tunics Bedivere had urged on him after the coronation rather than the matching hard-worn garb he'd brought from Londinium.

He raised an eyebrow at her — then blinked, surprised, as she raised a beckoning finger toward him. "Mage?" he said tentatively, then took a step forward, following as she faded away into a grey mist that seemed to rise from the earth and water around them.

Underfoot, the hollow-sounding thunk of wooden planks suspended above the river shifted to the more solid thud of boots on solid stone; the faint chuckle of water and crisp bite of the chill night air melted into the background noise of a castle and the sound of a child's laughter. "Mage, what's going on?" he repeated again, taking another long step forward ... and was brought up short as the fog faded away, leaving him in a differently-furnished replica of the great hall of Camelot.

Another giggle was his only answer; then a child suddenly appeared, a young dark-haired girl in an ornate gown with a mischievous expression. "Arthur! I've missed you!" she cried, flinging herself forward with a wide smile, arms outspread to wrap around him.

And somehow, they did; somehow, in that moment, he was even smaller than she was, clinging to his — older sister figure? Cousin? "Catia," he realised abruptly, caught by a sudden pang of dismay.

It had been ... convenient, that there had been no other claimant to the throne in place when he had taken the castle; more than one of the barons had rubbed that in his face in the first months he'd spent consolidating his rule. What a tragedy that she should disappear just as her mother had, during another coup not so very many years ago; where could she possibly have gone? Too many had wondered.

"Catia, is it you?" he asked, voice smaller and high-pitched than he could ever remember it being.

"Of course it's me," she replied, laughing, then pulled back, staring in his face; then she reached up with her other hand, and an older woman materialised next to her, dressed as befit a princess with a sorrowfully compassionate air. "I finally found my mother! And now you're here, too!"

"He's only visiting; you know that, Catia," the woman replied with a gently reproving smile. "Forgive my daughter, my Lord; she has found her happiest self, here. But there are others waiting, and not much time."

Arthur reached out to her, and found himself abruptly adult once more as he bent to press a kiss to the back of one delicate hand. "Arthur to you, surely, Aunt Elsa," he replied respectfully, for she could be none other than Vortigern's long-lost wife.

"Arthur, then," she replied, with a faint, dimpled smile. "Though may it be long and long before I need use it again."

He was sure, now, that these were ghosts he was seeing. Allhallowtide, as the new religion called it, was the one time of the year when spirits were rumoured to walk abroad, but he had a feeling the Mage had opened the way for these in particular, this night. That would teach him to complain to her about the lack of closure for almost everything in his life _but_ Vortigern ... but at the same time, he could not help but feel a pang of gratefulness, as well. And grief, that this would ever after remain his clearest memories of his family.

"I'm so sorry," he said roughly, clutching her hand tighter. "England may have been hard done by these last few years, but you more than most; the both of you." He could not, would not, apologise for defeating her husband, but he greatly regretted that their lives had apparently been part of the price of his uncle's ambitions. 

The young princess turned and buried her face in her mother's skirts; Elsa replied with another sad smile, and shook her head. "It is behind us, now. You know who was to blame, and you have already avenged us. Carry no guilt for us, nephew; only live for us, instead. Now come; there are others who would speak with you."

She tugged gently at his grip, pulling him after her ... then faded away into another billow of mist. For a brief second, Catia lingered behind; and instead of the young girl, he saw a young woman his aunt's height in a pink silk dress with a furred mantle draped over her shoulders. She seemed to step between the thin golden bars of a birdcage, arms outstretched; then she followed her mother, and was gone.

One more time, the world reformed: this time to the hill over the burial field, where Arthur and his crew had bid farewell to the pyres of the fallen. A man and woman, crowned in gold and bearing the gold-winged emblem of their house, stood where he had stood, after the battle to take the castle. Both turned to look as he approached, expressions lighting up as they caught sight of him.

The queen was the first to approach; the woman whose death he had dreamed nightly for most of his life, before he'd had any idea she was his mother. Sunlight lit her features in shades of living warmth, and she reached up to clasp his face in tearful joy. "Oh, my son; look at you. You have grown so like your father."

Arthur's throat closed up at the gesture, and his arms closed awkwardly around her. He'd had other mother-figures in the brothel; other women who did for him the best they were able, and whom he'd loved and did his best to protect in return. But to see the face of his nightmares filled with love, rather than shock and pain; it was an old, haunting wound finally closing at long last.

And the king ... He looked up over his mother's shoulder to see Uther watching him with the same intensity from that last Sword-vision during the fight with Vortigern. He could see in his father's eyes that he remembered that exchange too, gaze steady and fond as he watched his wife hug their son.

Arthur couldn't imagine he'd grown up to be anything like the son his parents had envisioned; unpolished, untutored, rough-edged in tongue and manner, product of a might-makes-right existence rather than anything approaching a princely education. Quite a let-down, for a family line whose Roman ancestors, according to the historians, had once worn the purple. But there was nothing like censure in the eyes of Uther Pendragon.

"I tried to throw the Sword away, once," he found himself admitting, caught by that proud gaze. "They told me it was my duty to wield it. But Lucy, Rubio, Back Lack, the innocents caught up in the riots ... the cost of responsibility only grows, the more of it you try to wield."

"You wouldn't be the man you are if you didn't feel that pain," Uther said, approaching to clasp Arthur's shoulders as Igraine finally released her embrace. "The price of leadership is never light, my son. What will make you a good king is that you willingly took it back up, knowing what you would face, to prevent a greater cost. While I grieve for the years lost between us, I have no regrets for the man I see before me now. You have already begun a peace that does not rest on the backs of your subjects; now only embrace that peace for yourself, and I will count myself well satisfied."

"Even if I seat a mage at my Table? Or knight a woman?" he asked, smiling wryly.

"Your father only wishes _he_ had had the foresight to do so," Igraine replied, laughing.

Lines crinkled around Uther's eyes, and he wrapped an arm around his wife. "So long as you listen to them. Never be as blind as I was, and your reign will be a time of both challenges and great achievements."

A chill crept down Arthur's spine at the echo of prophecy; but if prophecy it was, it was far into the future. He banished it with an effort, and pulled his parents both into another tight clasp of arms.

"We're so proud of you, my son," he thought he heard one or both of them whisper as the mist crowded back in around him; he swallowed hard, then lowered his arms as the wooden boards of the dock rematerialized beneath him, leaving him alone once more.

Or — not alone; Arthur opened his eyes again and held his hands out to the Mage.

She clasped his fingers with a wry smile of her own, eyes warm on his face. "Did you see everything you needed to see?" she asked, kindly.

"You know I did," he replied, shaking his head at her. "So _will_ you take up that seat at the Table? Or do you still need more time?"

She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. "I will be there. Look for me at the new moon's turn. Now wake, my king."

He woke, and smiled softly at the ceiling of his room as dawn brought the first sounds of life to Camelot's walls.


End file.
